Kippt (YC S12) Launches Bookmarking App To Become The GitHub For Links
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
99% of the time, if I need to find something I've read before, I'll just search for it & find it.
The exception to this is when I was working support and had several product spec sheets & other reference pages bookmarked for quick access to email links to customers. Even while I was at Uni, I'd download articles to PDF.
On the rare occasion that I like or am interested in something enough to want to bookmark it, I find I rarely actually come back to it. Just looking now, in my Bookmarks menu I have a couple of folders — apparently the result of me saying "save all open tabs as bookmarks" in the hope of coming back to it later — but never having done so.
Long-form articles I come across while I should be doing something else go to Instapaper to be read later (is this what people use bookmarks for?). Even then realistically I only actually read 20% of them.
Anything I really think a friend of mine should read, I email a link there & then. This is a 1- or 2- click operation.
Anything that I think is just too interesting/funny/important to keep to one or two friends, I put on Twitter, or here on HN. (I guess that ends up being a kind of bookmark service; I have scoured my submitted stories (and upvoted stories) to find them again.)
For my frequently visited sites without RSS, the browser URL bar is my friend - just start typing & it autocompletes. The only bookmark in my bookmark bar is the "Instapaper: Read Later" bookmarklet.
What does everyone else use bookmarks for? Is there some awesome use case I've been ignorant to since 1996? Am I just a freak for never wanting to revisit things?
No. I do, but there are a lot of people with different approaches, so all that can be said is the number who bookmark is large and the number who don't is also large.
What does everyone else use bookmarks for?
Presumably to save effort and as a form of external memory. In my case, I bookmark with probability proportional to how difficult it was to find. In particular, I only ever bookmark knowledge and information and do not use bookmarks as a storage for trinkets (alas the things which interest me are likely dull graphite to most). Also, I have not done any tests but it appears google searches are non stationary - old search terms do not always return the same results. Finally, for me, it is a very frustrating experience when I am looking for something I know is there.
Is there some awesome use case I've been ignorant to since 1996?
Yes, but the answers are subjective and incommensurable with the ranking criteria of those who would ask a question like that.
Am I just a freak for never wanting to revisit things?
No. The word freak is only part of the used vocabulary of those severely lacking imagination (to clarify, this is not targeted at you but those in habit of calling people freaks).
For me, bookmarks are mainly for 1) things I may want again and only vaguely remember 2) articles I'd like to read when I have time.
Examples of stuff I've recently pinned:
- An article that has a quote from Linus Torvalds that I'd like to use in a blog post I may write someday - The best Inkscape tutorial I found in maybe 10 minutes of searching - An HN article comparing A/B testing with multi-armed bandit, which is irrelevant to me right now but maybe someday I'll want to read
In each case, I pin that thing, give it whatever tags make sense to me, and possibly write a quick description.
There are 51,200,000 search results in Google for "Linus." In my personal pinboard, there are 2. Guess which I'm going to try first if I vaguely remember something I once saw about him?
Probably 80% of my bookmarks are never used, which is another reason why the "tag now, search later" approach is so nice to me; those neglected ones aren't cluttering up a GUI, making it hard for me to find what I want right now; searching cuts right to what I want.
Pinboard.in is fast, simple, super-effective, cheap (but not free, so I'm the customer), and cross-browser (since it's a bookmarklet).
It also lets you mark everything private by default, which I like. Too many things are social these days. I don't want to broadcast my opinions about sites; I just want to find things again later.
It's one of my favorite tools.
I especially like the introduction flow for connecting accounts (fb, twitter) and the call to action to install the browser extension in the end.
kudos.
I imagine there are users out there that would benefit from this, but is it enough to run a business? I agree with another commentor that this seems more like a talent acquisition play than an actually viable business.
As I said I'm probably not the target market, but the tech crunch article made me cringe a little bit. When I see stuff like this I wonder if there is a funding bubble.
Kudos definitely to the engineers that put this together. Clearly a lot of thought went into the product. For me though, it left a "why are they solving this problem, AGAIN" taste in my mouth.
(http://blog.pinboard.in/2011/10/the_fans_are_all_right/)
I think it's a cool idea. It could be really useful for some things I do. I'm glad to know about it.
I have no freaking idea what you mean when you say "The github for links" - and the people I'd want to use this with will never have heard of github.
I wonder how many other comprehensive communities exist like this, somewhat under the radar, serving themselves.
Right there with you. I can't help but be facetious: "So the links are all editable by anyone? Do I have to create a repository for all my links? If links don't constantly change, why are we tracking changes to links? Heck, why are we letting people edit them?"
The sign up process is slick but way too long. Need to provide some instant gratification.
Just because I like to check out new products, I was patient and did all the steps properly. But, in the end I just got a blank screen saying "this list is empty". That was pretty disappointing. Then I imported my Instapaper articles and still the list is empty.
If speed is an issue, why don't you just show me "today's popular articles" or just fetch the last 10 links I shared on twitter? Show me something or I might never come back. This is not exactly a space without competition.
Edit: I'd like to be able to save articles with a single click. The 2-click save thing is what everyone gets wrong and why I end up using Instapaper for all my bookmarking.
Generally, I don't like managing bookmarks. I think that's what search is for. I should just be able to save pages with one click and then find them easily with search later on.
Bookmarklets for each list seem way too complicated. I don't want to have more than one kippt bookmarklet on my toolbar. So, I'll end up using your app just with one list bookmarklet.
If you find this is common among your users, then this could be the basis of a freemium model. Users like me with simple needs can use it for free. People who want multiple lists can pay a small fee.
If you're aiming the product only at power users who don't mind lots of complex options, then you can probably ignore my comments.
Generally we try to make the service as simple and effortless to use as possible. You shouldn't need to manage your bookmarks (if you don't want to, that what the search is for). The visual feedback has been long time on my to-do list, hopefully I get to it soon :)
Any idea about mobile integration?
Anyone doing bookmarking would serve themselves by having a look at it -- even though today everything seeks to be "as a service" as opposed to a local application.
Still no email (an hour or so later) :) - tbf, there's about 3000 links